210 which so sweetens the cup of existence.-The родо EDUCATION. Rectique cultus pectora roborant. (side note 117-1391) HOR. My remarks on education, tho' they are not so numerous, nor so diffuse, as those of many modern writers, will not, I trust, be the less useful they are intended solely for practice, and are derived from experience; for in this I have one advantage over my predecessors; I have children of my own, which cannot be said by many authors on education, ancient or modern. I do not pretend to invent plausible theories, I give plain rules, whose merits may be easily tried. I am no lover of system, tho' I admire the custom of generalizing ideas into principles; but experience is, in my opinion, the only test of excellence. To form theorectical opinions is one thing, to give practical rules is another; the one is intended for those who reason more than they act, the other for those who act without reasoning; the one is intended for philosophers, the other for those i 212 who are no philosophers at all; the one is for the learned, the other for the world. To such I write, to the ignorant and uninformed. The objects EDUCATION is the best gift of parents Stuted The difficulty of laying down general precepts. to their children, and without it, all the ad- The great difficulty in writing upon this ranks; indeed, it is almost impossible, for рздо as possible, and leave them to be applied by the discretion of parents in all ranks. The studies which are suited to a man of fortune, cannot be proper for a peasant, nor are the same virtues required of the two; yet sobriety, temperance, moderation, honesty, and œconomy, are equally suited to all ranks and characters. These are not relative, but positive virtues; they are equally the interest, and tend to promote the happiness of the rich and poor; they are. adapted to all times and seasons, and can never be out of place. The cultivation of the mind by those virtues which are common to all ranks, and by the pursuits which are adapted to different stations, is the great art of education, and without this is duly attended to, every thing else is either culpable or ridiculous. There is one profession, viz. that of a soldier, War, a. whose institution and whole employment are so totally opposite to every thing here intend ofession totally. adverse to ed, that I feel an ardent wish that it could the object, be wholly banished from the world, yet, considering the nature of man, and his tendency to propagate beyond the power of the earth to afford him subsistence, it seems hardly probable that he will ever bring himself to prevent, rather than cut off a redundant population; say. Education at an Early period 214 war, therefore, with most of its horrors, will still continue, and man will never be completely civilized. The commencement of education ought to Sh commmebe much earlier than many parents imagine, for tho' the dispositions of the mind depend in some measure on the temperament of the body, yet they are much more affected by external objects than is generally supposed. To those who maintain the existence of innate ideas, and the irresistible power of natural disposition, I must here endeavour to reply, because their error is of considerable importance, so far as it relates to the task of forming the rising generation.-A child of five minutes old cannot be supposed to have many ideas, or if it has, they must lie dormant, and wait to be called forth by time, like the words in Munchausen's speaking trumpet, congealed by the frost. On this supposition the mind must be considered as a sort of separate essence imprisoned in the body, on whose growth or decay, its exertion depends during the time they are connected together; but if the mind is nothing more than a series of impressions received by the senses, and formed into ideas, then these ideas can have no existence before the child's birth. The capacity for receiving |